Books

After You’ve Gone

A Novel

“After You’ve Gone, like its hero, is quiet, measured, and introspective. . . . A lyrical, honest, and valuable novel, one that attends to the quiet life of a prudent, respectable, and most ordinary man.” —John Dufresne, The Boston Globe

Jeffrey Lent was born in Vermont and grew up there and in western New York State, on dairy farms powered mainly by draft horses. He studied Literature and Psychology at Franconia College in New Hampshire and SUNY Purchase. He lived for many years in North Carolina, an enriching and formative experience. Lent currently resides with his wife and two daughters in central Vermont.

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About The Book

The brave portrayal of a man finding hope in the midst of life-changing tragedy, After You’ve Gone has been hailed as “truly an emotional journey” (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis). Now in paperback, it is a moving, sublime love story set in the cataclysmic decades around the turn of the twentieth century and spanning Nova Scotia, New York, and Amsterdam.

Henry Dorn has spent years building a family, but it only takes a single afternoon for it to fall apart. Abruptly widowed of Olivia, the love of his life, Henry buys a steamer ticket for Amsterdam, the city of his heritage, hoping to start life anew. But nothing could have prepared him for the woman he meets on the ship: the fiery, self-sufficient Lydia Pearce, one of a new generation of women. At first Henry does not know what to make of Lydia, but before long the two have fallen into an affair of a depth and significance for which neither was prepared. And just as quickly as he was robbed of his wife, Henry is faced with the possibility of new beginnings. But the memory of the woman he fell for in the first blush of youth, and the vexed relationship he had with their son, haunt Henry in the midst of his new beginning.

Jeffrey Lent is one of our finest novelists and in After You’ve Gone he has delivered a masterpiece: a gorgeous tale that encompasses several pivotal decades in American life and beautifully charts the sweep of a life, the grim reach of a war, and the discovery—and loss—of life-defining love.

Praise

“[An] affecting new novel . . . Lent’s real talent is for character development. Henry Dorn lives and breathes, and he haunts us long after his story ends.” —Stephen Amidon, The New York Times Book Review

“Beautifully restrained . . . the novel won me with its craft and piercing insight, and the accumulating hope for what Pearce and Dorn might come to mean to each other.” —Karen R. Long, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“Gorgeous prose, searching intelligence, and keen understanding of our tangled attachments to the past and each other . . . As usual, this gifted writer aims to challenge, not to console.” —Wendy Smith, The Washington Post

“Lent . . . writes elegant, gorgeous prose. . . . His narrative style, unrushed and elliptical, allows his story to unfold with a graceful inevitability. . . . It is a pleasure to surrender to the beauty of the storytelling, to succumb to the force of Lent’s elegiac prose and the lingering effects of this haunting novel.” —Robert Weibezahl, Bookpage

“Jeffrey Lent . . . has done something really wonderful in his latest novel, After You’ve Gone. . . . Henry’s story and the delicate, thoughtful way Lent presents it encourages us to examine our relationships, our assumptions about those we know best, and our tendency to resist the idea of a second, third, or fourth act that is just as fulfilling as the first and most familiar one.” —Kristin Latina, The Providence Journal

“Jeffrey Lent . . . is a warrior of a writer, wrestling with themes like history and love. . . . His writing . . . towers over most anything else in contemporary American literature.” —Mary Jo Anderson, The Chronicle Herald (Nova Scotia)

“Lent is capable of writing a truly beautiful sentence, and After You’ve Gone features lots of them. . . . The redemptive power of love has filled many a bookshelf. What sets After You’ve Gone apart is the risks it takes.” —Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor

“A story of love, loss, and the struggle for purpose after tragedy . . . For those who have not sampled this fine writer’s work, this is a good place to start.” —David Shaffer, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)

“[A] finely crafted tale of the early 1920s . . . Both physically and intellectually, Henry Dorn travels great distances. As an author, so does Jeffrey Lent.” —A.C. Hutchison, Times Argus (VT)

“A closeup view of the loss of innocence of a person and a world . . . [a] vivid depiction of the era. It’s a nice contrast to the aimless youngsters often associated with the lost generation canon.” —Publishers Weekly

“More strong, thoughtful fiction from Lent about family ties and the hold of the past on protagonists pondering their direction into the future . . . The novel’s prose is . . . gorgeous, its insights . . . mature.” —Kirkus Reviews

“With novel after novel, Jeffrey Lent has shown that special ability to pull us quickly and seemingly effortlessly into a world that we come to know and appreciate the way we know our everyday lives. We ask that of our best storytellers, and Lent has never disappointed us. Now, with After You’ve Gone, he arrives again with amazing artistry with a story that unfolds in three countries. And, again, he does not disappoint. All the wonders of the heart and mind are in his new novel. With unequalled skill and sensitivity, Jeffrey Lent offers us a profound understanding of the how and why we get through our good days and our bad days.” —Edward P. Jones, author of The Known World

“I had a curious and fascinating experience with Jeffrey Lent’s After You’ve Gone. I read it three months ago and then let it slip in and out of my consciousness without beckoning it. Like all good novels, After You’ve Gone will become part of your life. The triumph is the quality of Lent’s prose.” —Jim Harrison

Awards

A Washington Post Best Book of 2009
Selected as a March ’09 Indie Next List Title

Excerpt

It was a clear night, early August with no wind. He rowed straight out into the lake until he was far from shore but could still see the clumps of lighted windows of the cottages. Once out he shipped the oars—the boat would drift with the slight current but not far. He pulled his feet from under the seat and stretched his legs and then leaned back so his head rested on his arms wedged across the bow. It was comfortable enough. It was only moments before a star fell against the void. And soon another. The Perseid meteors. He could not begin to count them and did not wish to. Anymore than he could recall the number of times he and Olivia had made this silent journey of summer. Many years ago they had brought the children with them but they were too young and the spectacle not sufficient to be wakened and bundled and brought out onto the water. So it became theirs alone. The two of them. Each year. Now uncountable. It wasn’t a matter of doing the math or not. The years were uncountable.

So he lay as long as he could and watched the dome overhead and caught the streaks as he could. When he became stiff and sore and slightly cold he still waited. Finally a single burning bit of star flared—no more brilliant or outstanding than the others but out loud he said, “Oh my sweet heart.” Then, rocking the boat, forced himself upright and got the oars into the water and rowed for shore. Tears running free and soundless down his face. His shoulders and back ached. His heart a dangerous unreliable engine.

Reading Group Guide

by Susan Avery

1. The first chapter of After You’ve Gone, introduces Henry Dorn at the beginning of his marriage to Olivia in Elmira, New York, in the summer of 1891. “What flowed out to him that evening was the lovely dulcet balance, as pure as the hand in his, of the cello.” (p. 1).What is immediately apparent about Henry in these few pages? What do you infer about Olivia?

2. The second chapter moves Henry abruptly into a whole new world; he is now fifty-five years old and in “unspoken exile” in Amsterdam. What are the constant themes that connect this Henry with the one in Chapter One? How do these two chapters give you an insight into Henry’s nature?

3. “Henry worked his way through Kummer’s Daily Exercises” (p. 5). According to Kummer the main aim of learning the cello was to achieve a full and powerful, but not stiff tone. Kummer believed that “Because of the beautiful sound of the cello, its most characteristic feature is the influence upon the mind and the heart, only when used with mind and heart.” How would you describe the relationship of mind to heart in Henry Dorn?

4. “It was almost as if he’d had two families” (p. 17). What is meant by this statement? The accident that kills both his wife, Olivia, and their son, Robert, divides Henry’s life into two distinct periods; before and after the tragedy. Why do you think that the duality of Henry’s family life is an important theme?

5. In their wrenching last encounter before the accident, Henry and Robert attack each other verbally and ultimately Robbie attacks his father physically. Are Henry and Robert really so different? What tears them apart? “I was always afraid of you. But I shouldn’t have been, should I? You were always right there for me, weren’t you? I was just too young to see it. There wasn’t fear, was there. I must’ve had a bad dream . . . Gosh, Dad, isn’t it strange how those things can just overtake you and you don’t even know that it’s not true? That in fact your father doesn’t know what to do with you, is scared of you and so you end up scared of him?” (p. 232). What role does Olivia play in the father-son dynamic?

6. After Henry resigns from his teaching position why does he choose to go to Amsterdam rather than return to Nova Scotia?

7. When he first catches a glimpse of Lydia Pearce on his voyage aboard the Veendam II. Henry muses about women. “Men were the great vessels that passed over an ocean as if it were only there to be passed over; women were the scrappy schooners of his childhood, not only down in the trough of the waves but riding up to the tips and sloughing down again” (p. 75). Explore the differences between men and women in the novel and the conflicts in Henry’s mind. How do the two women in Henry’s life, Olivia and Lydia, differ? How does this correspond with the historical period in which the novel is set?

8. What initially attracts Henry to Lydia Pearce? Is it significant that they meet aboard a ship? Once Lydia has told her “little story” do Henry’s feelings change? “Alone on a seemingly tranquil sea he stood gazing out at the morning star and realized that something had just begun with Lydia Pearce, something he could not predict or control but was fully within” (p. 131). What does Lydia represent for Henry? What is Henry’s attraction for Lydia?

9. Why is the fire at Henry’s childhood home in Nova Scotia a turning point in his life? What influence does Uncle George have upon Henry’s early life?

10. “Of his father there was only a recalled presence; a looming figure, huge hands and a gentle voice but no images to fit this—only the sense of those things having existed. Of the death and burial, even the return to Nova Scotia he remembered nothing. His mother had two photographs of his father but he’d seen them only a couple of times as a boy and they could have been anyone” (p. 64). Why is Euphemia reluctant to talk to Henry about his father? How does this impact on Henry’s sense of himself as a man and as a husband and father?

11. Does the pulling back and forth between time periods in alternating chapters help to develop the story and bring Henry Dorn into focus?

12. “Although festive, most of the music one way or another was born of the sea, and the toll it exacted. Weddings, Henry decided, were strange affairs, as likely to produce tears as laughter and no telling one moment to the next who would erupt with any possible combination” (p. 86). Through the summers of Henry’s adolescence, his sexual awakening with Laura Crocker, his sister’s wedding, and his jobs with his Dorn uncles, what are the distinct influences on Henry? How does he change? Do you think that living in Nova Scotia has a marked effect? How?

13. “But he was confident also he could find some of the drawings, the paintings he’d only heard of. Things like that, beautiful things, did not disappear from the face of the earth but lasted. It was only a question of being dogged, not giving up, asking the right questions enough times to enough people and he would find them” (p. 91). Is this statement really true for Henry? What is he seeking? Does he find what he is looking for at his father’s grave?

14. After Lydia leaves Henry in Amsterdam to go to Paris, he reflects on, “How alone a person lives” (p. 98) What bearing does Henrys feelings of isolation have on his relationships with his mother, his wife, his daughters, his son, and ultimately with Lydia?

15. What picture do you get of the young Dorn family on the hot day in late summer when they visit the water toboggan?

16. What effect does the “terrible summer of 1907” in which Robbie suffers from whooping cough and Uncle George dies in Nova Scotia have on Henry? What does he come to understand about his mother and his uncles?

17. In what ways does the story of Dimitri Morozov’s family affect Henry? What lessons about life does Henry learn from his cello teacher and from practicing the original cello suite composed by Morozov?

18. Henry loves to walk and learn to navigate in his surroundings whether in Amsterdam or Nova Scotia or at the lake with his father-in-law. What besides the layout of the countryside or city does Henry understand from his walks?

19. What is Henry expressing when he finally writes his letter to his mother? What motivates his writing? Why does it exhaust him?

20. “Perhaps we hold too rigidly to the breaking down of time into days and months, even years. When I look back over my life so far I see it as one thing rolling into another, but I also see it as being periods. Cycles of time” (p. 150). What is happening to Henry when he sees Olivia’s “ghost” while dining with Lydia?

21. What does Henry experience as he watches the construction of the Ferris wheel? “The wheel had lifted them high above themselves” (p. 205). How does it alter his connection to Lydia?

22. “Children are happy with daisies in a field. Adults demand more. Sometimes too much” (p. 218). Why do you think Lydia leaves Henry to go to Paris? What does she need to work out? “Life, Henry, I’ve learned is relentless and wonderful and you showed and gave me much of this understanding. Part of which is that we are always falling forward into the future” (p. 224). How has her personal history affected her relationship with Henry?

23. What is the meaning of the quote from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the context of After You’ve Gone? What have April’s sweet smelling showers created?

24. On the day of Lydia’s return to Amsterdam, Henry wears himself out, running errands and preparing everything for a perfect reunion. Did Henry find what he was looking for? What does Lent mean, as Lydia disembarks, by “she knew his location by heart?” (p. 247)?